Gunman sought in N.Y. shooting at T.I. concert that killed man

Associated Press

Published 2:49 pm, Thursday, May 26, 2016

NEW YORK — Police searched Thursday for a man captured on surveillance footage firing a gun in a packed hip-hop concert where artist T.I. was set to perform. Four people were shot, one of them fatally.

A fistfight that started on an upper floor of Manhattan’s Irving Plaza concert hall spilled into a second-floor balcony VIP area where shots rang out Wednesday night, police said.

The shooting occurred shortly after rapper Maino entered the VIP area following a performance onstage with artist Uncle Murda, though investigators don’t know whether the rappers played any role in the shooting, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said outside the concert hall.

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Video and witness statements showed “fisticuffs broke out and then gunplay thereafter,” for roughly five minutes, he said.

In the surveillance footage, police said, a man can be seen firing off one round just outside a green room — a performers’ lounge where there were no security cameras.

Five 9-mm shell casings were collected at the scene, though it’s not clear whether there was more than one shooter, Boyce said. No arrests have been made.

Investigators described the shooting as particularly brazen: There were almost 1,000 people in the concert hall and at least one of the victims, Christopher Vinson, 34, was shot in the chest on the venue’s ground level after a bullet traveled through the floor, Boyce said.

Ronald McPhatter, 33, was found near the bar of the VIP area with a fatal gunshot wound to the stomach, Boyce said.

The shooting marks the third time in a decade that shootings have occurred during or after concerts where T.I. — born Clifford Joseph Harris Jr — was to perform.

In 2010, the Atlanta rapper was sentenced to 11 months in prison on federal gun charges.